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SPACE4 - Conference

In 2014 the European flagship projects Galileo and Copernicus (European Earth observation program) entered the stage of operability, providing free access to space based data and signals to European citizens. Local and regional authorities (LRAs), are a key end-user group of space-based services and products, in particular Earth Observation imagery is needed for a broad range of territorial and environmental purposes in public administrations.

After years of discussions on the financing of these Space systems, the current concern is to make sure that they are used and exploited intensively by all potentially interested stakeholders. Because of their strategic role as key end-user group, LRAs can invest in the development of targeted services tackling specific issues of public interest. LRAs cover a pivotal function in the development of a highly innovative, industrial sector as they can foster commercial exploitation and enable business opportunities of high added value in different domains.

To date, however, the transformation of data coming from Copernicus and Galileo into services by LRAs is slower and dispersed across Europe. To optimally capitalize Europe’s investments in building this space infrastructure a systematic up-take is needed. This is why the European Committee of the Regions and NEREUS, the Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies, work to promote a better understanding of the potential space-based applications and to ensure that a greater number of administrations will benefit from the availability of the two space systems. In line with this mission, the SPACE4 Growth and Jobs Conference was held on the 28th of May in Brussels, at the CoR.